Ex-treasurer’s mother will sell house to repay GAA money
In the meantime, the defendant, Patricia Carroll, 49, was yesterday remanded on bail to appear at Limerick Circuit Court on February 27.
She had pleaded guilty last Wednesday to 19 charges of theft and forgery involving sums totalling €98,316 from Blackrock GAA club in Kilfinane, Co Limerick.
Carroll, of Chapel Street, Kilfinane, had been club treasurer at the time of the offences.
She had been remanded in custody following the hearing, but when brought to court yesterday, her counsel, Mark Nicholas, handed in a letter to Judge Carroll Moran from the woman’s mother, Helen.
Ms Carroll undertook to sell the house in which her daughter resides and give the proceeds of the sale to the GAA club.
While efforts are ongoing to sell the house, she will hold the property in trust for the club.
Mr Nicholas said the accused had found jail a very distressing experience and was living in terror while locked up.
He said prison staff were a model in the way they had treated her over recent days, but she found being locked up, and confined, dreadful.
Judge Carroll Moran said the GAA club could not tolerate losing such a large sum of money and he would not make any promise that she would not go to jail.
If the property is sold and money from the sale given to the club, the judge said he would take a different view.
He added that as a sale was now being forced, it was doing to drive down the price of the property.
The court was told that one deal for around €80,000 had collapsed and two auctioneers now had the house on their books.
Judge Moran said he would balance the conflicting pressures arising from what the property will achieve at sale and the money owed to the club.
Carroll stole €63,543 in cash from the club’s weekly lotto fund and took a further €34,773 by forging cheques which she drew on the club’s bank accounts.
